I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). Sometimes I’m not so bright. In fact, I can make just stupid decisions. When I was a child my arm was broken. The arm was never set properly and as a result the arm has always given me some discomfort. The last few months however; the pain has steadily grown where I have to work around it for such tasks as putting on a shirt. So I put in a medical request form. I suggested that perhaps the lack of exercise is causing the pain, as up until a year ago I was being treated for cancer and I didn’t exercise much and since then I’ve done very little. But with my impending release on Wednesday, I didn’t make a good choice ignoring the pain. To my surprise, I was actually seen on Sunday by a nurse right here on the unit. The nurse decided to see me because of my history of cancer. She determined the kind of bone issue I described shouldn’t be ignored. Just another example of the usually positive experience I’ve had with health practitioners while I’ve been in prison. She decided to refer me to the doctor without performing tests. But she did take a history of how it happened, asking why I didn’t address this years ago when I had insurance and why I waited until now. Truth was I didn’t want to answer the questions people would have asked related to how it happened, my usual honesty and shame issues. Hopefully, I don’t continue that pattern. One nice thing about all my family and friends knowing I went to prison is all pretense is gone. The truth will be revealed eventually whether you want it to or not. The fact I had problems is now known to them. How will they react to me? How will I react to them? I am going to try, despite the loss of family, possessions, career, and money, to hold my head high. The difference between disgrace and shame would be failing to learn the lessons shame has taught. It will be a struggle, make no mistake about that. Charles and Victoria Martin, my adoptive parents, have his retirement celebration coming up July 17th where family friends and acquaintances from years gone by will be in attendance. We’ll see then if my words here mean anything. The rest of the weekend was uneventful. ERP group member Scott Dietz had his paperwork signed by a Milwaukee County judge on a weekend. He also inquired about me building websites for his businesses. I’m suspicious of any contact with people from here or promises made but I said sure I’m interested but I’ll need a couple of months to get my feet on the ground. But I almost believe him. I talked to my adoptive parents on Sunday as well. They have the bed I slept on as a kid setup in the basement and some simple foodstuffs put up for me there. The internet will be turned on June 25th so I can get to catching up on my Information Technology and programming skills. They gave my parole officer (PO) Helen Gaither the house key which I can get from her on Wednesday but left a door open in the event by the time I get to Menasha, WI after business hours. Of course this tells me the PO and my adoptive parents have been meeting and talking. That makes me a little nervous. But everything seems set. Wednesday can’t get here soon enough!

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). It seems more had gone on that I didn’t know about on Monday. As I’ve told you previously, our ERP group leader Ms. Grey was unhappy with guard Ruth Barthowski for having helped inmates with information and advice. Ms. Grey in full hearing of all inmates in the dayroom told her it wasn’t her place to have helped inmates in any fashion as that’s not her job. That was followed by a phone call from the unit manager to Barthowski echoing the same sentiments. Barthowski disappeared halfway through the shift due to a medical emergency at home. I hope that wasn’t just a cover story but I also hope everything is ok there. The next day in the morning began the second week of parole officer (PO) calls. But Ms. Grey has clearly been embedded in recent events. People from the last graduating class were working out in the rec room which doubles as our group room and the computer room, which doubles as a visiting room, during ERP program hours. Historically graduates have been granted a lot of freedom while awaiting their paperwork to be processed. But Grey went to all these inmates and pointed out that according to the letter of the contract signed when PRC granted us ERP they still have to follow ERP program rules until release, even asserting herself on regular 1st shift guard Roscoe Peters. I do agree with her that I don’t want to smell the sweat of people working out that morning in our afternoon group session but I wonder if the ERP staff know or care that their very public in fighting is so obvious to us and the damage to their credibility it is doing. Our afternoon session was devoted to the study of Ecstasy. We watched the video Ecstasy When the Party’s Over from the Educational Video Network. It dwelled on the physical consequences of its use. Then we watched the movie called Crash starring Terrance Howard and Sandra Bullock. Its storyline revolved around the ripple effect of intolerance and bigotry on its participants. It was a good movie. At the end of the session there were a couple of surprises. As you recall, Ms. Grey had asked me to help group member Mark Hogan do his Phase II Goals and Objectives. Hogan had let me help with one of his goals but insisted the other one was fine. Ms. Grey didn’t. But she gave it back to me to help him which annoyed me. But then the last thing that was said took me back a bit. She told us that we are here to work on ourselves and not worry about her and that she gets to go home at night and we don’t. That was rude but clearly these words were a reaction to something else, possibly cellie Larry Sandsstories to the psychiatrist. Sometimes the days are just a struggle you know? But that night I got mail from the biological father’s family responding to the last letter where I laid much of what had happened years agoin a letter passed via email. Much to my surprise they didn’t reject me. They even confirmed some of the horrors my biological father had done to some of them. They had had doubts I was who I claimed to be. No longer. I didn’t write back that night. I’m just drained these days. But I found some good medicine that night on Milwaukee Public Television watching the series The Civil War A Film by Ken Burns. Such an excellent production. It was chicken soup for my soul.

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). I have a lot to cover and not a lot of time to do it. The rec room issues continued as my ERP group member Russ Johnson didn’t make a lot of friends here when he told those wanting him to share the exercise bike that he couldn’t help it that he had a million dollars and they didn’t. Some wanted to pound him but what saved him and many others in these situations is everyone is so close to getting out now nobody wants to risk an altercation and get thrown out. Many such as Johnson knows this to be the case so they are taking their verbal shots and act tough thinking their won’t be consequences. Sometimes I think people just shouldn’t play with fire because one of these times a stray, irrational spark might burn them. On Tuesday our ERP group leader Ms. Grey appeared shortly after 9:30 am. Today was devoted to the study of heroin. The first videos shown were Heroin, What Am I Going To Do? A Hazelden production and Heroin and other Opiates again featuring Dr. David Ohlms. At the end we had time for discussion and ERP group member Augie Prescott inquired about his Interstate Compact to allow him to return to Alabama to allow him to do his extended supervision (ES)/parole there. An Interstate Compact is an agreement on a process between different states that allows parolees to move across state lines and reside there. Unfortunately in Prescott’s case, his paperwork remains out of order. His presentence investigation and criminal complaint is missing. Without these items, the compact won’t happen at this stage, it’s really too late. He’s upset because Ms. Grey and his parole officer (PO) here have known about this since he got here and nothings been done. I don’t blame him for being upset. I asked again if she had called Sal’s House, the halfway house in Waukesha I’m considering and she said she still hadn’t done so. She said an agency called the TOP program was coming in to give Waukesha County people a presentation related to a program called Wiser Choice in Milwaukee County. We just are getting the impression she doesn’t want to do a heck of a lot. In the afternoon we saw an extremely compelling video entitled Black Tar Heroin The Dark End of the Street that followed the lives of several heroin addicts in the late nineties. It was brutal in its honesty in describing the horror of heroin addiction. I’d highly recommend for anyone just getting into trouble with it. In the middle of the video ERP group member and cellie Larry Sands got called out of the room. After a brief discussion (heroin wasn’t a big issue in this OWI ERP group) we got out and got our mail from guard Ruth Barthowski who is kind enough to hand it out right away. I got word from my sponsors that my biological father’s family had emailed again. We’ve been writing back and forth since they found me but we’ve always danced around any issues up to this point. Not this time. They indicated they wanted to know. I told them most of what I’ve told you. It seems none of them knew what had gone on as my biological father wasn’t in touch with them at that time. I feel…. okay with it. I mean if I can tell it here I can do this. I am nervous on their reaction. I won’t lie. When I saw Sands he told me what was going on. He had gone to see the psychiatrist here and told them how Ms. Grey had pushed him on his grief issues (when he read his auto) and such. They weren’t at all happy and told him that was improper. They’d be talking to the unit manager and that he shouldn’t fear retaliation from Ms. Grey for talking about this. You’ve got to give Sanders a lot of credit for speaking up, for saying what many have wondered about. I have no idea on how this will turn out. She doesn’t like it if you disagree with her much less something challenging her methods.

I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). Cocaine and crack was the topic of our ERP group morning session. Again this wasn’t my thing but it was largely informative. The first video we watched was Cocaine and Crack Back From the Abyss, another Hazelden production. It described the hell cocaine addicts go through in the first part, the process of recovery in the second, and continued growth in the third. We followed that with another Hazleden video called Cocaine Beyond the Looking Glass. Though it appears quite old, the video effectively told the same story, with a particularly compelling story told by a man who lost his hand to cocaine psychosis. We then took the cocaine/crack test. As it turned out though, the literature contained factual errors. It called cocaine a Schedule III drug and described cocaine being present in Coca Cola until 1904 though our ERP group leader Ms. Grey claimed it was between the 1940-1960 era. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a third rate mail order correspondence course. I try to present the facts to you and let you draw your own conclusions but sometimes my frustrations boil over. Sorry. Anyway, after the test was corrected, we had time for discussion. The question of when our next parole officer (PO) phone call came up. Many of us aren’t staying in the county of where our offense was committed upon release which requires a transfer, which will possibly include me. For many that work isn’t complete yet. Ms. Grey told group member Mark Hogan, who is trying to get to another county, he’d just have to talk to the PO in Milwaukee County if the work wasn’t complete. He usually acts goofy and keeps everyone loose with his humor. But he went off on Ms. Grey. He told her if they were going to keep him in this county they may as well send him back in front of the Program Review Committee (PRC) and have him taken out of ERP. The tone he took in the ensuing discussion was menacing, almost threatening. It was so out of character, at least in what we had seen up to this point for him. Ms. grey reacted very calm, almost coming across as if she was afraid of him, as she used a very soothing tone. In conversations among us later, we were amazed Hogan was still in the group after that exchange. After that she announced we all had to review our Phase II goals and objectives again to verify they were compliant with SMART – that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, and Timely. I had gotten min approved yesterday so I thought I was good. But then she also announced she didn’t have everybody else’s goals and objective sheets even though everyone had turned them in. This, of course, made everybody unhappy as people argued the point. She had been referring to mine as not being SMART. So now I approached her and asked what was wrong now. The bottom line is it has to be rewritten. Lunch was interesting, as the guys in the group just were freaking on Ms. Grey and how she appears to be not at all wanting us to succeed. After lunch we saw the movie 28 Days starring Sandra Bullock and were assigned to a discussion sheet to fill out this weekend. That night the theme of frustration continued as the new people coming in were trying to get in on the exercise bike and machines in the room that is our group room, that doubles as the rec room. I’d seen fights nearly break out over the amount of time certain people spend on the machines so I stay away. It’s not worth it. But the new folks don’t know how it works and complained to guard Ruth Barthowski who tried to enforce the 30 minute limit on the machines that’s never followed. This just ticked everybody off at the “snitches” though no one really knew who they were but that didn’t stop them from guessing. Week 15 is over, but signs of stress, fatigue, with the environment and frustration are showing. I suppose this is normal and was inevitable.